Numb. 6:22-7; Gal. 4:4-7; Lk. 2:16-21
Today, as the
world celebrate the beginning of a new year, the Church celebrates the
Solemnity of the Mother of God. It is the oldest of all Marian feasts in our
liturgy. It is also a feast appropriate to those of us concerned with new
beginnings, with new resolutions, and renewed hopes.
This is a true story of Mother's
Sacrifice during the China Earthquake.
After the Earthquake had
subsided, when the rescuers reached the ruins of a young woman's house, they
saw her dead body through the cracks. But her pose was somehow strange that she
knelt on her knees like a person was worshiping; her body was leaning forward,
and her two hands were supporting by an object. The collapsed house had crashed
her back and her head.
With so much
difficulty, the leader of the rescuer team put his hand through a narrow gap on
the wall to reach the woman's body. He was hoping that this woman could be
still alive. However, the cold and stiff body told him that she had passed away
for sure.
He and the rest of
the team left this house and were going to search the next collapsed building.
For some reasons, the team leader was driven by a compelling force to go back
to the ruin house of the dead woman. Again, he knelt down and used his had
through the narrow cracks to search the little space under the dead body.
Suddenly, he screamed with excitement," A child! There is a child! "
The whole team worked
together; carefully they removed the piles of ruined objects around the dead
woman. There was a 3 months old little boy wrapped in a flowery blanket under
his mother's dead body. Obviously, the woman had made an ultimate sacrifice for
saving her son. When her house was falling, she used her body to make a cover
to protect her son. The little boy was still sleeping peacefully when the team
leader picked him up.
The medical doctor
came quickly to exam the little boy. After he opened the blanket, he saw a cell
phone inside the blanket. There was a text message on the screen. It
said," If you can survive, you must remember that I love you.".
A greater act of
bravery, a greater act of sacrifice that happened 2,000 years
ago. Today we are celebrating that great sacrifice, the feast of Mary, the
mother of God. Today the church
affirms the doctrine that Mary is the Mother of God. This Catholic Dogma finds
its origin from the passage found in the Gospel of Luke. After the archangel
Gabriel appeared to Mary, she went to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Upon her
arrival, Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit expressed her joy at the arrival
of the Mother of God. We are aware that life of Jesus begins with Mary. Her
Motherhood began when the eternal God entered human history. As her mother hood
began, her sacrifice too began. On this day, we are
reminded of the role that the Blessed Virgin played in the plan of our
salvation. From Bethlehem to Golgotha she was present at every activity of her
son. Mary repeated her "Yes" to the plan of God from the
Annunciation, to his birth and squalling infancy, his youth, maturing, leaving
home; her hearing about him from others, hearing about what he had said, what
he had done; the healings and exorcisms, the confrontations, the way of the
Cross, seeing him nailed to the cross, and her holding his dead body.
With
her repeated submission to the will of God She established herself as the
mother of God.
And
this mother is a gift to the Humanity from Jesus. Whenever anyone was in need
she intervened. Her intervention seen at the marriage at Cana is a good example
for that. There are many evidences over the
sweep of history for the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
According
to legend, a young man while roaming the desert came across a spring of
delicious crystal-clear water. The water was so sweet he filled his leather
canteen so he could bring some back to a tribal elder who had been his teacher.
After a four-day journey he presented the water to the old man who took a deep
drink, smiled warmly and thanked his student lavishly for the sweet water. The
young man returned to his village with a happy heart. Later, the teacher let
another student taste the water. He spat it out, saying it was awful. It
apparently had become stale because of the old leather container. The student
challenged his teacher: "Master, the water was foul. Why did you pretend
to like it?" The teacher replied, "You only tasted the water. I
tasted the gift. The water was simply the container for an act of
loving-kindness and nothing could be sweeter."
When we celebrate the
feast of our mother, let us be grateful to her loving kindness and
accept her as our eternal refuge.
Satish